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Family seeks answers in West End killings

By: Gabrielle Giroday

Posted: 05/20/2012 5:16 PM | Comments: 0

Jennifer Tichborne, Virginia Lee, Adara Beck, and her daughter Elyssia Acosta, 3, at a vigil for Carolyn Sinclair, held at the spot where her body was found, in an alley near Notre Dame and Toronto Street, Sunday, May 20, 2012. (TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

It’s been months since her sister last called her from a West End convenience store.

In that time, her sister’s body turned up near a dumpster. It's one of the homicides with links to Winnipeg’s West End that remains unsolved.

Amanda Sinclair said she last spoke to her sister Carolyn on Dec. 13, 2011. Carolyn's body turned up months later near a Notre Dame Avenue dumpster.

She said her sister lived near Ellice Avenue and Maryland Street, and Carolyn had struggled with prior violence against her.

Friends said they didn’t want Sinclair type-cast as a sex -trade worker who wasn’t loved by the people around her. She was pregnant when she died.

"I can’t understand how someone could do that," said Sinclair, 32.

Her sister had been reported missing back in December – and police have asked the public for information on where she was after mid-December 2011.

The homicide is one of three unsolved cases with links to the city’s West End.

On Feb. 12, Walter Madonick was shot to death on the 600 block of Simcoe Street.

Police have released no suspect information, and months later still have not announced a motive.

And on April 6, Allan Crockford was shot to death on the 600 block of Maryland Street, in what family said was a robbery attempt.

Police have also never released suspect information or a motive for the attack.

Winnipeg Police Service spokeswoman Patrol Sgt. Monica Stothers didn’t say Saturday which homicide cases remained unsolved. This past week, police arrested 19-year-old Devin Williams-Wapash and 22-year-old Danyell Williams after a robbery in a Sargent Avenue back alley that left 31-year-old Clarence Ross dead.

"As the community members wait for these investigations to be completed, they can feel confident knowing that the police officers are in their communities are doing everything they can to protect community members for a safer community," said Stothers, in an email statement.

However, police have not announced arrests in Madonick’s death, in Crockford’s case or in Sinclair’s case.

The first two cases involve shootings, and in Crockford’s case, family told the Free Press he’d been shot in the course of a robbery.

Jasmine Madonick, the 22-year-old daughter of murder victim Walter Madonick, said she has moved from the West End to outside the city.

Her father had been cleaning up the apartment building where he was a caretaker, and had made enemies for trying to get drug sellers and users thrown out of the building.

He was preparing to receive treatment for cancer he had when he died. Shortly before he died, he’d been attacked in another incident.

"I want to know who did it," she said.

Gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca

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